


my friend

by dynast



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other, introspective, kind of pretentious but that's me in my head for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 08:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17280494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dynast/pseuds/dynast
Summary: my heart soars with you





	my friend

When I was young, my parents would take me and my brother hiking.

 

Dirt trails and high views and green-yellow-grey shrubbery, dusty fields of dry stalks and pebbles, thickly-wooded forests, we walked through all kinds of scenery. Quite a headache for our parents, too, given as kids we naturally held short attention spans and even less of a love for hiking for hours, when we could be playing at home instead.

 

In particular, on one of these numerous hikes - so many, they've all blurred together somewhat - I no longer remember where, exactly, or even when, beyond the nebulous vortex of "childhood, sometime" - we hiked quite high, from one side of the mountain to another, alternating between the green lushness of windward and the drier, sunny leeward side. Shadow, light, shadow, light, trickling streams in the shadows where moss grows on rocks and bright sunny skies shining down on foliage. Dry and wet, trees with long drooping branches that blanketed the ground in yellow-orange-brown cover of leaves, picturesque green meadows just around the corner. That's right, it was autumn - winter, maybe - but one side of the mountain still felt like summer.

 

It was on that sunny side, that summerlike day, the dusty yellow trail where the air thinned out at higher altitudes, the plant life matching shades of desert brown and drying yellow, sun shining down merrily - hot, but not too hot. The air was supposed to be cold, it felt like, but leeward is the warm side of the mountain, and the sun shined, and the skies were blue, and we would walk and rest, walk and rest in intervals. We'd see people. It wasn't too narrow of a path, really, could probably fit four people shoulder-to-shoulder, but we'd climbed pretty far up, yeah, and looking over the edge was terrifying to me. I stuck to the inside of the path with my mother. My brother, on the other hand, had what I realize now was a terminal case from young of what you would call "trolling" now - he liked to do whatever to get a reaction out of people. So of course he found it great fun to walk along the edge of the trail, near the sheer drop, giggling at how my mom and I would freak out whenever he pretended to sway over the side.

 

Don't get me wrong. I was scared of falling off, of course, statistics flashing through my head of  _just how likely would it be to tumble/trip/stumble/fall_ off that edge? Nobody  _means_ to hurtle to their doom off a hiking trail. It still happens. So sue me for being cautious, wary, maybe, but it didn't mean I wasn't enchanted by the view standing there on the trail. Such bright blue skies, with hardly a drifting white cloud, the bright sun, just the right temperature to be warm but not scorching, and miles and miles of chasms of wilderness, below it all. And another emphasis. The open air, the sky, so blue.

 

I couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to jump off that edge, into that sky, and have wings, a beautiful, impossibly perfect pair of shining white wings, that never grew tired, that were exactly what I wanted, that took me where I wanted to be - in that blue, blue sky, away from here, away from myself, away from everything, even, flying out into that endless deep-shallow sky with the sun's warmth and the wind in my face, in my hair, under my wings. To jump, and not fall, but fly. To jump and catch myself. To jump and leave. To jump and be free, powerful, in a way I knew I never could be ground to earth as I was. Exhilaration to face terror and not collapse but overcome it with the ease of a beat of white, white wings. Wishful dreaming, of course, but the mere thought of it was so intoxicating that it followed me off that trail. Sometimes I would be sitting in a dull classroom and think about what a stunningly flawless pair of wings they would have been, so effortlessly  _easy_ that they made my troubles meaningless.

 

It was the fantasy of a child, of course, but those have a way of carrying with you even till later in life.

 

That rush, joy, a special kind of happiness where you have everything you could ever want and you need for nothing else, your heart's desire, the bluest brightest summer skies with nary a cloud, only the gentle smile of the sun, saying, go, be free, be happy, you have nothing to be afraid of, that wonder of flying, that sense of power, absolution, to be beholden to nothing and no-one, to be lifted up, to rise, to fly, to soar - open - wonder, wonder, wonder -

 

my friend,

 

my heart soars with you.

 

(do you understand?)

**Author's Note:**

> written in reflection after my uncle's recent passing. 
> 
> what i wrote is not about him, but thinking about his life and in turn mine led me here.


End file.
